Lisa's Homemaking Corner

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

A few weeks ago, over the course of a week, I made some extra dinners to put into my freezer. It ended up being about two weeks' worth. After going through those two weeks being completely spoiled by just being able to pull a good, homemade meal out of the freezer a day or two ahead of time to thaw, and just popping it in the oven, I decided feeding the freezer is not so bad. ;-)

So, I came up with a months' worth of meals to make, picked a day to go shopping (payday, of course!) and then cook away! This past Saturday was to be the big cooking day, but since I was able to do some of the shopping early on Friday, I decided to get a head start. Boy, am I glad I did! I spent both days in the kitchen all. day. long. But, we're only a few days into enjoying the fruits of my labors, and I've gotta tell ya...it is SO worth it!

Here's the meals I made. If the recipe is online, I will link to it. If not, I will work on getting them on my blog in the next week or two so they can all be linked to something. ;-) Not all of these are completely made up and in the freezer, some of them just need a starter in the freezer (and a couple of them have nothing to do with the freezer!), so I will try and let you know what I did as I go.

Spaghetti (x3)--gasp! I don't make my own sauce for this. I use Aldi's Reggano Traditional pasta sauce...it's really good without doctoring, and it's cheaper than making your own (if you have to buy all of your ingredients...growing your own veggies is a different story!). I just cook up a bunch of sausage, season it, and divide it up among 3 freezer bags and freeze! Thaw the meat in the refrigerator the day before, then the day of, cook it up in the sauce while the noodles boil. I also have French bread in the freezer that I made, and will pull out to make garlic bread. Yummy! Very simple.

French Bread Pizza (1x)--Freeze the French bread, shredded mozzarella, maybe some cooked-up sausage or pepperoni. I use our Aldi's pasta sauce (see Spaghetti above) for pizza sauce, so that can just stay in a jar in the cupboard. ;-) Pull everything out the day before to thaw in the fridge, then assemble just before dinner time and throw it in the oven until the cheese is melted.

Pizza (2x)--I make up my own crust dough and freeze it. Same concept as the French Bread Pizza above, except you're working with a pizza crust instead of the bread. Thaw out the dough, roll out the crust, then proceed as normal.

Chili (2x)

Tacos (1x)--just cook up the taco meat and freeze in a ziploc. Take it out to thaw, heat, and assemble as desired.

Taco Bake (1x)

Sloppy Joes (1x) Again, just make up the meat mixture and freeze in a ziploc. You can either freeze the buns separately, or just wait to buy (or make!) them until you're ready to eat it.

Calico Beans (2x)

Almond Chicken Casserole (2x) I just make this up until right before putting the topping on and baking, and instead dump it into a gallon-sized ziploc. When I'm ready to make it, I thaw it, dump it into a 9 x 13 pan, put the topping on and bake as directed.

Chicken & Stuffing Casserole (1x)

Sticky Chicken (1x) With this, I rub the spice rub all over as directed, then stick it in a gallon bag and freeze. This counts as refrigerating overnight. :-) So when you're ready and it's thawed again, just stick the onions in the cavity and continue with step 2 in the directions.

Cheeseburger Soup (2x)

Twice-Baked Potatoes (1x)

Split Peas Soup (1x)

Broccoli Cheddar Soup (2x)

Chicken Pot Pie (x2)--I didn't actually make this yet, because I actually ran out of chicken! But I will make it when I can get more chicken, so here it is. This is a WONDERFUL recipe. I just make it as the recipe states (I do use my own variation of the recipe for the gravy, and I will post that later), but I freeze it instead of bake it! Then I just let it thaw and bake as the instructions say...turns out really well!

Rarebit (1x)--This is not actually a freezer meal, but is extremely easy to put together. It's actually one of my hubby's comfort foods, and he prefers to make it himself, so I just let him at it! :-) It's basically a cheesy white sauce over saltine crackers...super easy and super yummy!

Mac & Cheese (1x)--Again, not a freezer meal, this is one of our "cheapo" meals that comes out of a box, so basically, I count it as ready. This one is also hubby's deal...he has a certain way of making it, and even the kids can tell it doesn't quite come out the same when Mom does it. LOL!

Chicken Curry (2x)

So, there you have it! One month's worth of meals. It was hard work for 2 straight days, but now I'm livin' the good life with all the work already done! LOL! At least until next month...

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Here in our home, we will be starting our new school year in a few weeks. Yesterday, I started integrating our school-day schedule back into our lives to get re-acclimated to a stricter schedule. Going from an 8 or 8:30 wake-up to a 5:30 (for me) wake-up, is not fun at first, but I'm doing it. Even if I'm not all here yet. But, I digress.

Part of getting ready for a new school year, for me, means getting some fall cleaning and de-cluttering done around the house. While I do try and keep up on basics during our breaks, I will freely admit I slack off on any serious housekeeping. So, I like to go through and make sure that the state of our home is not going to be a distraction while we're doing school.

All that said, I have decided to make today Tackle-It Tuesday. I know I'm not the only mom who has at least one cleaning/de-cluttering project we keep trying to put off until it's practically staring us in the face (or someone else mentions that it's staring THEM in the face, you know, because you've just gotten that good at ignoring it yourself). Well, today, on Tackle-It Tuesday, let's pick one project to tackle! If it's too overwhelming, just pick one STEP of it to tackle. You never know...once you get into it, you may decide to finish it. But, if you don't, that's okay. We're looking for progress here.

My project? Ironing. I've got quite the pile going.

I haven't decided if I'm going to finish the whole pile today, but I'm at least going to start. (Have I ever mentioned ironing is probably one of my least favorite chores?) This is one of those things, for me at least, where the hardest part is just getting started.

Monday, October 8, 2012

This week it's easy, since we are eating out of the freezer! Over the last couple of weeks, I had been working on making meals and feeding the freezer, getting about 2 weeks worth of meals in there. Now, my family will enjoy the fruits of that. :-)

So, it seems I've been gone from the blogosphere for a little while. Back in June 2011 my husband and I made the decision to get the internet and cable out of our home for a period indefinite. We just needed a break from all the hoopla. And a break we got! Sure, there were occasional trips to the library to check in, and I would get on when my phone would pick up a wi-fi signal, but other than that, it was completely out of our home. It was definitely nice...sometimes. We all really enjoyed not having the distraction, but every once in awhile situations popped up that definitely made us think that life would be a whole lot easier if we could hop online and find the info instantly. Now, don't get me wrong...we survived without the internet just fine (just like people did before the internet was around), and we could continue to survive without the internet just fine if we had to or desired to. However, because it's there and because right now we can, we have made the decision to bring it back into our home.

There weren't a whole lot of things I missed, but of the few, blogging was a pretty big one. I realize I'm not the world's greatest writer and that my blog has no "official" following at the moment (and I wasn't exactly "big time" before we went offline, either!), but blogging has been something that I've always enjoyed, even if I wasn't always consistent with it.

Having said that, it has been 3 days since we've been back online here and I am just now writing this post. Why, when I'm so excited to get blogging? Well, I wanted to get all the re-exploring out of my system first. Catching up on Facebook with a real keyboard instead of using the hunt-and-peck method on a phone, re-visiting old favorite sites and making sure favorite recipe sites were still up and running, and cleaning out my e-mail account, groups, and reader account. Now that those things are for the most part taken care of, I can sit down, relax, pray over, and think about what I really want to write about.

To me, this is kind of like a fresh start, a clean slate. A time to really think about where I want this blog to go. Or more like, a time to pray about where God wants to take this and ask Him to use my writing and this blog to glorify Him. And may it be so.

About Me

*Princess (a daughter of the King of Kings, to be exact)
*Corrections AND Fire Wife (I guess that makes me a Queen, too)
*Homeschooling Mama
*MS Survivor extraordinaire
*Avid reader
*Excellent cook and baker (oh, when I have a recipe)
*Pegasister, because of my 2 Bronies :-)